2012, being the 30th Anniversary year for Masters of the Universe, has seen several iconic characters from the vintage line make their way into the Classics series. That trend continues with the heroic human periscope Mekaneck.

Mekaneck comes in the standard MOTUC blister card package. He is packed without his extended neck, which makes sense as he wouldn't fit in the box otherwise. As always, the back of the box shows off other figures in the line, all of them heroic warriors -with the exception of displaying the Snake Man-At-Arms variant instead of the standard human version. And, of course, there is the bio giving us the story for the character in the MOTUC continuity.

The real name is a bit odd to me, but at least they didn't give him some lame joke name like "Perry Scope". It also strikes me as confusing that it was magic that gave him his powers when the neck is technological, but it does explain how they got it in. If you think about it, Mekaneck would need to have been decapitated in order to install a neck that lets him raise his head up so much on top of it. The only other explanation would be a process that turns his flesh into metal. While I would have used just plain technological nanites, combining magic and technology does actually help overcome any "that wouldn't work" feelings and is keeping in line with the major theme of MOTU.

Let's look at the actual figure now. Despite being such a memorable character, Mekaneck actually has very little new tooling in his body. He uses the standard male buck for pretty much his entire body, though he does feature the small wrist cuff left forearm instead of the full bracer version. He also features the newer boot tops, introduced with Vikor, that cover the ankle pins.

His armor is the same as Stinkor, which is actually the reverse of the vintage line. Vintage Mekaneck came out in 1984 Stinkor followed in 1985. It does still feature the hole in the back where Stinkor's air tanks plugged in but there's nothing for Mekaneck. Also, the small dot on the front appears to be glued in and doesn't come out on this figure. The paint job on the entire figure and armor is very clean and vibrant. His goggles do not have vac metal like the vintage figure, but they are still done in a metallic silver so they are still nice and shiny. He has all the same articulation as a normal figure and is not hindered in any way. In fact I must say all the joints are nice and tight on mine. In fact they are some of the tightest I've had on any figure.

For accessories Mekaneck comes with his classic club, which is done in a two tone yellow giving the bumps some metallic shine to them. The mace is a nice solid plastic and in fact I had a little trouble at first getting it into his hand as both were solid and didn't want to flex enough to fit the handle into the gap to get in his grip. Better than gummy weapons though, by a long shot. His other accessories are to recreate the iconic action feature of his namesake extending neck. Both the vintage figure and the 200X version had a neck that went down into the body and would extend out by turning the figure at the waist. Since MOTUC has no action features (mostly) it is done differently, though in the way most fans expected it would be. The figure comes with an extension piece that fits in between his neck peg and head to create the extended neck. The great thing about this is you now can pose him as you like with the neck extended instead of needing to have his waist twisted. Also the neck piece is designed in such a way that it keeps the ball joint articulation and can be tilted forward, back, or to the sides. Mekaneck can turn his head left and right on the top, but doesn't get much up and down movement there.

But it doesn't end there. Mekaneck also comes with a second even longer neck piece that's almost as tall as his body itself. In both cartoons, particularly the 200X show, Mekaneck was seen extending his neck to seemingly limitless lengths. The longer one does make him more top heavy, but it's not too hard to find a pose he will balance in. Both neck extensions are made of a nice solid plastic so there's no worry about it sagging over time. While it can't twist and turn like in the 200X cartoon, it's still cool to be able to really stretch it out. In fact...

Mattel stated that Mekaneck would not be able to stack his neck extensions. What they meant though was he was not designed to do it. They can indeed be stacked on top of each other, the catch is that each neck piece has a raised blue collar ring at the bottom. So you could get multiple figures and stack the neck up to outrageous lengths, but you will have the rings every few inches. Actually though in the 200X cartoon Mekaneck did have rings along his extended neck, they were red though.

Classics Mekaneck is straight up vintage figure update. You can really see how they went for the vintage appearance and brought it into the Classics style.

At the same time, being able to pose him with an extended neck and not needing to twist his waist to do it is a very welcome feature that in many ways make this a better route to take for a figure of the character in general.

The 200X version was not a very radical update of the character compared to others. Like Man-At-Arms, his body suit under his armor was made to look more metallic and technical. The main difference though was in the goggles which were now translucent green (though there was the chase version that had clear goggles) and also featured a hole in the back that both allowed light to shine through and also allowed you to look through to see through his eyes. He did feature the problem of having a club that was too heavy for him. It's next to impossible to get him to stand on his own while holding the club up.

Apparently the Four Horsemen originally wanted the 200X figure to have a neck that popped up with him still facing forward. The final figure ended up with the same twist waist to raise neck feature as the vintage, but did have the ability to turn his head side to side on the neck so it opened it up a bit. He also had a spring loaded wrist to swing his club, but the weight of the weapon threw that off a bit. Don't get me wrong though, I still really liked the figure, even if he was hard to find, being short-packed, at least at first.

Mekaneck often gets picked on as being one of the lesser heroes as his power isn't as useful in battle as many of the other warriors. This actually got translated into canon in the 200X cartoon where he suffered from low self esteem because of it. For some reason though, I have always really liked the character. I'm not sure what it is about him, but he always got treated much better in my canon.

Regardless he is an iconic character and a great addition to the line. I feel many collectors will be quite pleased with this figure. Mekaneck is sold out on Mattycollector.com, so hit up the secondary market to pick up this guy. Good Luck, and until next time, Good Journey.

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